Crab Apples
by RedMageXII
Summary: Rei is furious when her father railroads her into dating a young politician. An understandable reaction - after all, it's her life he's controlling - but why is the unflappable Aino Minako so bothered by it? Rei/Minako.
1. Chapter 1

Hello good people! I've wanted to write a PGSM Rei/Minako story for a while and this idea just sort of happened one fateful day. I'll update when I can because working out how to get these two blockheads to admit their feelings for each other gives me the best kind of migraine.

Hope you enjoy it.

* * *

 **CRAB APPLES**

CHAPTER ONE

Hino Rei did not understand. Not even a little bit. She was sitting in a restaurant opposite her father at their usual monthly meeting, speechless with rage, her blood edging its way to boiling point.

Back at the graveyard that day, she had thought the two of them had reached a new understanding, a different phase of their relationship. For all her priestess duties, she had humoured him over the years that followed: agreed to his lunches, even attended the occasional interview or appearance with him. All in all, she had tried not to cause him needless trouble in spite of her desire to remain out of his spotlight… so to ask _this_ of her? After all she had done? She stared at the business card in disbelief, her thumb and forefinger gripping it so tightly that its corner crumpled.

"You can't do this," she said.

"Kaidou-san is a young up-and-comer in the LDP," Hino Takashi explained evenly. "It would benefit both of you to consider a relationship."

"You mean it would benefit you," Rei accused lowly.

"Rei," Takashi said, "you are an unattached eighteen-year-old woman. To go on one date with an associate of mine – a rich, intelligent, good-looking man widely regarded to be a good catch – is not much of a request. Any other daughter would beg me to set this up."

Rei rocketed up from the table. She felt the eyes of other diners upon her and the restaurant hushed like someone had hit the volume button. "I refuse to prostitute myself for your career," she hissed.

"It is not prostitution," her father said sternly. "It is a date, and it is non-negotiable. Kaidou will collect you at six on Friday. Wear the white dress."

Rei cast him a betrayed glower and stormed out. When she reached the pavement outside she yanked the conservative grey cardigan from her shoulders – yet another shackle he had bought for her – and slammed it into the nearest waste bin.

"Bastard," she muttered under her breath. The streets were busy; she had to keep it together. It wouldn't do for her to lose it in public. Besides, she was due to head to Crown. With Makoto's business, Minako's music career, Ami's work and Rei's visits to Kyoto, the former senshi didn't get together as often as they used to. In fact, these days seeing Ami was almost as rare as seeing Minako. As such, for all five of them to be together was a particularly lucky turn of events, and Rei refused to let her father's antics ruin her evening.

When Rei arrived she found she was the first one there. Thankfully Makoto and Ami were next through the door so she sought their advice, praying they would be done talking about the whole thing before Usagi arrived and spontaneously combusted with the news. Who knew _what_ she would do? Dress her up? Give her dating tips? Rei didn't want to find out.

"A date?" Ami said. Her eyes said it all: bafflement. A small part of Rei was pleased she had made her opinions so abundantly clear over the years that even the world's youngest practising doctor thought her father's request was a mathematical impossibility. Sometimes Rei wondered what Ami's esteemed colleagues would think if they found her sitting in a karaoke suite at seven on a weekday, yet Ami never expressed discomfort over juggling her two very different worlds. As a priestess, Rei supposed she had much the same clash, but these meetings gave her a different kind of solace to her life at the shrine. Rei imagined Ami felt the same way.

Presently, Ami shook her head. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet," Rei sighed. "I know it's… _only a date_ , but…" That phrase sounded like an alien language coming out of her mouth. If Rei truly deplored romance, should she consider it a serious personal affront or a tedious, but ultimately meaningless, inconvenience? Surely the latter adhered to her principles more. It meant this was not a big deal, even if it did highlight her father's perpetual failure to understand her.

"It would be thoughtless to stand Kaidou-san up," Makoto decided. Blunt as always but considerate as always; Rei love-hated that streak of common decency in Makoto, not least because it often goaded Rei into doing things she didn't want to do. "He could have been dragged into it as much as you were."

"I don't want him to think I'm interested," Rei protested. Ami covered her mouth and Makoto snorted. "What?"

"I don't think you need to worry about that, Rei-chan," Ami said, struggling to keep a straight face.

"Why?" Rei frowned.

"Rei, you're not approachable at the best of times," Makoto said. "Let alone for a date."

"Rei-chan has a date?!" Rei's cringed in horror at the sound of Usagi's voice. She turned to find their wide-eyed princess on the stairwell, Minako following behind. Usagi bounded down the steps and stopped in front of Rei, slapping one hand to Rei's forehead and the other to her own. "Are you sick?!"

"Get off," Rei deadpanned, batting her away. "It's no big deal. My father set it up. I don't even want to go."

"What's his name?"

"None of your business."

"Kaidou-san," Makoto unhelpfully supplied, fielding Rei's glare with a grin.

Usagi's face turned dreamy. "Kaidou Rei… Wait, 'kaidou' as in 'highway' or 'kaidou' as in 'church'?" She gasped. "Your name would mean 'church spirit'! It's so right for you."

"It's neither," Rei griped.

"Probably 'kaidou' as in 'crab apple'," Minako breezed, slowly descending the stairs. Rei looked up, unsure whether Minako was supporting her or teasing her – quite possibly both at once – but Minako's expression gave nothing away.

"Don't say that," Usagi pouted. "You're ruining the romance of it."

Minako didn't reply. Instead she addressed Rei directly, something that wasn't quite amusement crossing her face. "I thought no-one could make you do anything. With the possible exception of me."

"No-one's making me," Rei retorted, "but it's not worth fretting over. It's only an annoyance."

"Is that so," Minako remarked. She walked behind Rei, out of her line of sight. Rei felt a tingle close to her backside and whirled to find Minako had removed Kaidou's business card from the pocket of her trousers.

"Hey."

"You're still a senshi. You should have expected that." Minako's eyes roamed over the card as she said it, her admonishment coming out so casually it sounded irritatingly like a reflex. "'Ocean', huh?" she said, noting the first kanji. She handed it back to Rei. "With the fire senshi. That'll end well."

Rei felt strange talking about this with Minako but couldn't place why. "I didn't intend it to end well anyway," she said and settled for shooting their former leader a suspicious look, though whatever was going on in Minako's head had at least dampened Usagi's enthusiasm, for which she was grateful.

Nonetheless, Rei wished Minako would just say what was on her mind sometimes. Even after the world had reset, even after they had shared each others' weapons… even though they no longer had any powers, a transparent film always seemed to exist between them, preventing them from being closer. The illusion of rivalry persisted, at different turns fun and irksome, though she supposed that, between Minako's many international tours, their past lives' mission being completed and both of their egos, time together was both hard to secure and hard to request. Rei always seemed to leave their unlikely encounters feeling she had forgotten to say something important, and Minako – in spite of her second chance – was as opaque as ever.

One thing Minako did do, however, was make more effort with their princess and, following her odd behaviour upon arrival, she spent the majority of her time winding Usagi's mood back up to hyperactive with karaoke duets. The evening passed smoothly from there, companionable, familiar… easy. Across the room, she and Minako would exchange smiles, catch each other's eye and share prolonged glances, perhaps trying to project the things they never spoke aloud. After a while Rei grew satisfied that Minako was back to normal and dropped her defences a little, all but forgetting her imminent blind date.


	2. Chapter 2

Here is the second chapter. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten my other story commitments. It's just that I wrote out a huge chunk of Crab Apples in one night so there's no reason it shouldn't see the light of day.

I always wanted to see Minako deal with Kaidou's existence so I put him in this story. After all, of all the Minakos out there, PGSM Minako is definitely the one who needs the biggest kick up the bum to confess.

* * *

CHAPTER TWO

"He's too old for you."

Minako was standing on the steps of the shrine, arms folded, a white baseball cap and hoodie the only things concealing her true identity from the rest of Tokyo. Rei hadn't even sensed her come by. "Excuse me?"

"Crab Apple-san," Minako said by way of explanation. Already sick of the conversation, Rei resumed sweeping, but Minako continued regardless. "I searched for him online. He's twenty-eight."

Rei stared at her. "You researched him?"

"Only because I knew you wouldn't," Minako said, shooting her a smirk. "I thought I'd keep an eye on him."

"Do you expect me to be flattered?"

"Do you think it's normal for a man who's twenty-eight to chase teenagers?"

"I…" Rei scowled at her. "It's one date. And I'm not interested. I've said all this; open your ears once in a while."

"If you're not interested you should cancel it," Minako said. "It's a waste of time."

"Arguing with my father is an even bigger waste," Rei parried irritably. "At least Kaidou might have something interesting to say."

Minako looked sceptical. "Maybe. Ask him why he's dating a teenager. I'm sure he'll have an interesting answer for that."

"Why do you care so much?" Rei asked. She thought they were finished with this. Rei knew _she_ wanted to be; she had absolutely zero interest in this Kaidou person and planned to spend as few waking minutes contemplating the stupid date as was humanly possible. Why was Minako talking about it? No, actually, why had Minako shown up _specifically_ to talk about it?

Minako, for her part, shrugged. "I'm the leader. It's my job to watch your back."

"Watch all you like," Rei snapped, turning on her heel and stalking back into the shrine. Minako's eyes burned into her. She didn't follow.

* * *

"Don't you think you're overreacting?" Artemis asked gently. It was six in the evening and Minako had a shoot with a photographer who insisted the pictures be taken at sunset. Awaiting make-up in a blue evening dress and heels, she folded up her jeans and shot him a look. "I only mean," he amended nervously, "isn't it normal for young women to date?"

"Mars is different," Minako said with a troubled frown, setting the jeans on the table and starting to fold her shirt. "Mars doesn't date. Why is she going along with it?"

"If she's unconcerned with romance, surely it's all the same to her whether she dates or not?"

"If it's all the same, why bother then?" Minako sighed, dropping the shirt on top of the rest of her clothes.

"Relationships with parents are complicated," Artemis suggested. "We may not admit it, but sometimes we do things we wouldn't choose to do in order to keep them happy. Or…"

"Or?" Minako prompted. She looked anxious.

"Maybe Mars is changing," he conceded. "Saying you don't want love when you're fourteen is like saying you don't want miso soup when you're a child. We can be very stubborn about our principles when we're young, but our feelings mature as we age. She's not a schoolgirl anymore."

Artemis stood from the sofa and jumped to the floor. Minako picked him up and placed him on the table in front of her. He regarded her carefully; in her face he found pensiveness covered up by that old sheen of prickly self-confidence. He knew her too well – knew her too well at her worst – to think there wasn't more to this than she was saying. "Minako," he began.

"Mm?"

"Why are you so concerned about Mars? You're all friends. If she decides she likes this man, won't she have your blessing?" Minako didn't answer. "Wouldn't you hope for _her_ blessing if _you_ fell in love?"

"I'm _not_ in love," Minako said defensively. "What a weird analogy."

"Minako—"

They were interrupted by a knock at the door. "Come in," Minako said, relieved, and her makeup artist entered the room, bowing and introducing herself. If Artemis knew his charge, this particular topic of conversation would now be off-limits. He just hoped she would work through whatever this was without butting heads with Rei again.

* * *

Friday rolled around faster than Rei wanted it to. When Kaidou's black BMW pulled up outside, she emerged from the doorway awkwardly, embarrassed to be so dressed up. The white dress her father had asked her to wear was light and patterned in lace, the kind of thing she never wore. Feeling exposed, she had pulled a black jacket over the top of it.

Kaidou exited the car, straightening out his pinstriped shirt and adjusting the glasses on his nose. He was certainly aesthetically pleasing; a serene smile played over masculine features and there was a calmness about him that probably made ordinary girls swoon. When their gazes met, Rei liked the way he looked at her: not lecherously, not nervously, not condescendingly or oozing a politician's charisma, but like he was meeting an equal for a business brunch. Suddenly Rei was glad she hadn't cancelled.

"It's an honour to meet you, Ms Hino," he said in a soft baritone. "I'm Kaidou Masahiko. It would seem I am your date for this evening."

"It seems so," Rei said, bowing courteously. He opened the passenger door of his car and Rei obliged him, climbing into the passenger seat.

"You look smart," Kaidou said.

"So do you," Rei responded. He shut her door.

The car ride was almost silent, but not uncomfortably so. For a man seeking a career in politics, Kaidou was economical with words; he was friendly but didn't make small talk, and Rei, head of the committee for banning small talk, was pleased with this revelation.

When they were seated at the restaurant, an elegant place which lacked unnecessary frills, he took her jacket and draped it on the back of her chair before sitting down opposite. They surveyed the menu with minimal interaction, ordered when the nearest waiter passed by and sipped at their drinks.

"You could have had something else," Rei said half-apologetically. This she said in reference to his lemonade. Rei was still not legally able to drink and she suspected he had ordered it to be polite.

"It's fine. I'm not a fan of drinking so it's a relief to have an evening where I don't have to. At work dinners, it's nearly a requirement. At any rate, I need to stay sober to keep up with you." He smiled amiably. "You seem like the sharp type."

"Does that bother you?" Rei asked.

"No." He grinned at her. "But I won't lose to you."

Rei couldn't help but blush at that. She sipped at her lemonade and found her gaze wandering to the flame on the tea light in the centre of the table; it burned bolt upright, so smoothly it might have been made of silk. Kaidou raised his eyebrows at her playfully.

"Your father forced you out tonight," he said. Rei's gaze snapped back to him.

"You knew," Rei said.

Kaidou cleared his throat sheepishly. "I expected a fan girl and didn't get one."

"Are you disappointed?"

Kaidou chuckled. "Relieved, actually," he admitted.

"So am I," Rei said. His hands rested on the tabletop; they were so still they could have been lily pads floating on a pond. A first impression was only a first impression, but Rei was hard-pressed to recall anyone she had met outside of the spiritual professions with such natural grace, anyone who was so collected. " _I_ expected a creep," she confided.

"A weird, red-faced, skirt-chasing politician." Kaidou laughed. "It seems we both made assumptions about your father's intentions. Perhaps we should give him a little more credit. It looks like he really did think we were well-suited."

"So you didn't have a part in this." Rei said it more than asked it. The way he behaved around her and his comment about fan girls had all but confirmed it.

Kaidou shook his head. "Your father said we should get to know each other. I think he wants to take me on as his understudy. I don't come from pedigree so I suspect he wants me to marry into it."

The restaurant was growing busier, filling up with the evening rush. Tired salarymen guffawed as they piled in from work and a young woman in a white shirt and blazer opened what appeared to be a birthday present, flanked on either side by other career girls. At Kaidou's remark, Rei visibly bristled.

"Interesting," she said.

"What's interesting?"

"You're very upfront," she said shortly. "You essentially just expressed an interest in marrying me."

"I'm upfront about your father's intentions," Kaidou corrected evenly. "That is what they are, whether we like it or not. Pretending that isn't the case is ignoring the elephant in the room."

"Would you really marry someone just to advance your career?" she said sceptically.

"I don't imagine I'd marry for anything else."

"Isn't that underhanded?"

"I don't think so," Kaidou said. He fixed his gaze on the tabletop, a thoughtful, intense expression on his face. Yet another thing normal girls would fall over themselves to see. "I wouldn't marry for love because I've never been in love and I don't think I ever will be. My colleagues think I'm strange when I bow out of their tedious visits to gentlemen's clubs and the like; the reality is I don't enjoy them because I'm not even interested in the _physical_ side of a relationship. A marriage for my career – where my wife and I both benefitted and knew the arrangement was purely business – would be better, I think. Wouldn't it be more underhanded to marry someone who was in love with me, whom I couldn't love back?"

Rei couldn't help but be impressed by that train of thought. She was even begrudgingly impressed with her father: he had succeeded in pairing up two people with absolutely no interest in romance.

"When you put it that way, it does sound like the kindest solution," she said quietly. Suddenly she felt ashamed for having assumed the worst of him.

Kaidou sat up straighter, looking over her shoulder, and Rei realised their food was here just in time for it to be placed under her nose. Kaidou picked up his knife and fork, murmured an 'itadakimasu' and cut into a medium-rare cut of sirloin steak. He glanced up at her.

"So, now you know why your father wants me to marry you. Why is it your father wants _you_ to marry _me_?"

Rei thought on it for a moment. Then she smirked, recalling what Kaidou had said before. "You say you suspect he wants you to marry into pedigree," she said. "I suspect he wants _me_ to marry into politics."

The evening passed almost regrettably quickly from there. Kaidou's platonic intentions, coupled with his composure, made him very easy to talk to. Their conversations, even his outright compliments towards her, were unencumbered by flirting or some deeper, darker meaning or intention. Because of that, Rei found she trusted him implicitly to be open with her. They asked blunt, searching questions about each other's upbringings, life philosophies and skill sets. If her friends were here, Rei imagined they would be pulling faces and telling her it was like a job interview more than a date, yet Rei preferred it this way. She enjoyed herself so much, in fact, that they talked until well past ten o'clock.

Kaidou dropped her off at the shrine just after eleven, bid her farewell without the slightest indication he wanted her to invite him inside, and told her he would call. Rei waved him off until his car disappeared, retired to her room and hung up her jacket. She smiled to herself, more pleased with the evening's progress than she ever could have anticipated.


	3. Chapter 3

_YuruYuri_ happened. _RWBY_ happened. If I could split myself into three I'd be uploading so much fanfiction at the moment. Unfortunately I can't, so here's a thing I wrote.

* * *

CHAPTER THREE

Rei was the last to arrive. She pulled a book from her bag, dragged out a chair, plonked herself into it and started to read without offering so much as a hello. Two sets of eyes bored into her from across the table. She huffed.

"What?"

Makoto and Usagi said nothing but raised their eyebrows a fraction higher, urging her to spill the beans. Why did Ami have to work the one day Rei needed a wingman? She rolled her eyes. "It was okay. Let it go."

"Okay?" Makoto said and turned to a beaming Usagi. "This is serious."

"I told you," Usagi said with a smug nod, "she's going to marry him."

"I am not."

"She's not marrying him," Minako said. She was leaning against the wall near the underside of the stairs. Suddenly self-conscious, Rei sat straighter.

"I thought you were in the studio today," Rei said.

Minako shrugged nonchalantly. "I took the day off. No big deal." At the worry in Rei's expression—time off work was something the girls connected to her former illness—Minako smiled reassuringly. "Really. How was Crab Apple-san, anyway?"

"Nice," Rei said, though talking about him around Minako made her chest feel constricted. "He seems like a good man."

"Are you seeing him again?" Usagi gushed.

Rei glowered at her but from her lack of answer Minako stood from her leaning place, searching her eyes carefully.

"Are you?" she asked. She almost sounded concerned.

"He's a good man," Rei said again. "I liked spending time with him. In a way, I hope he arranges something else."

"Don't wait for him to do it," Makoto blurted. "Make the first move."

"No, no, Mako-chan. She should wait for him to do it," Usagi said. "Guys like it that way."

"Motoki doesn't—"

"But he's ten years older than you," Minako said, ignoring them, her gaze still fixed on Rei.

Rei shrugged. Again she felt hot and uncomfortable. For the life of her she couldn't figure out the reason but it almost hurt to look Minako in the eye. "Boys our age are ridiculous. Perhaps an age gap isn't the worst thing."

Minako looked ready to say something but Usagi and Makoto cut her off.

"What was he like?"

"What did you wear?"

"What did you talk about?"

From there Rei deflected most questions and tolerated more than her usual fill of banter. When she finally reached her limit, she successfully intimidated them into steering the conversation elsewhere. Minako was quiet after that – the odd atmosphere from before had settled again – yet when Rei muttered her goodbyes and made it to the street, she heard footsteps following behind her.

"Hey," Minako said. Rei folded her arms across her chest, decidedly defensive.

"If it's about Kaidou-san—"

"It's not," Minako said. "There's another reason I came by today: I wanted to ask a favour of you."

"So long as it's a favour of me, not Mars Reiko," Rei said with a meaningful look. Minako smiled, clasping her hands behind her back.

"No 'Mars Reiko'," she promised teasingly. "It's just that I might be going out of town soon. I was wondering if you would apartment-sit for me."

"You've never asked before."

A question was implied but Minako dodged it. "This may sound weird, but I don't like it being empty. When I come back it feels unlived in; then I don't feel _I_ can live in it. Does that make sense?"

"As much sense as you ever make," Rei said, smiling in relief. Perhaps she had imagined Minako's odd behaviour. In fact, for Minako to trust her like this, perhaps they were closer than Rei had imagined.

"It's got all the gadgets," Minako joked. "Maybe you can pretend you live in the twenty-first century."

"It sounds indulgent and absurd," Rei said, "but I accept. I'm curious to see how the great Venus lives."

* * *

"She's staying here?" Artemis blurted in surprise.

"What's that face for?" Minako remarked haughtily. "I thought you'd approve. We're getting along. You wanted that from the start, right?"

"But coming to stay is…"

"What?" Minako asked, apparently ready for an objection. Artemis sighed. This was most definitely a scheme of some kind, one of his mistress's many dangerous whims, but arguing was pointless. Maybe all would become clear in the fallout. He stood and stretched.

"Nothing. I'm glad you're closer. It would be good for you to have a friend over, Minako; it's been a long time, after all."

With that he left through the window and Minako was alone. Truthfully even Minako didn't know why she had asked Rei over. When it transpired that the date had gone well she had felt compelled to do something, like something bad would happen if she didn't, so she had chased Rei and blurted her proposition without even knowing what it was until she heard it aloud.

She didn't even have any real commitments to justify an apartment-sitter; what was she supposed to do now, make something up then claim it was cancelled? Where would Rei even sleep? Minako had no spare room because she entertained no guests. The sofa? Her designer furniture was for show, not comfort. It would have to be the bed but something about that idea made Minako's blood rush.

It was a ridiculous plan. She enjoyed teasing Rei. Part of her wanted to see just how much trouble she could create for herself, to test precisely how far Rei would go for her sake and how angry she would get when she found out it was a lie. When fans took pictures, when Usagi threw herself at her, when the paparazzi knocked… Minako had so much attention, so much that it became unwanted, but from Rei she would settle for anything—a glower, a challenge, a full-blown fight—just to know Rei was focused solely on her; and what a gaze, steady and appraising and intense! Being seen by Rei Hino was all that seemed to matter these days. Sometimes Minako wondered if it went further back than even their first meeting, whether her eternal thirst for the spotlight had only ever been about Rei seeing her. Yet, even now, when Minako dominated the airwaves and was known across continents, Rei Hino still did not see her because Rei Hino did not watch TV. That was the irony of it, aching and twisting as it was.

Yes, the appeal to tease Rei was strong, but Minako resolved to temper the practical joker inside her. Their friendship was unstable, white-hot and fragile all at once. Minako feared she would puncture it, that it would bang one day and be gone. Inconveniencing Rei to that extent would be taking it too far. She should just call Rei and cancel this whole thing before she ended up in deep water. Reaching her decision, Minako picked up her phone and dialled her number.

It was engaged. Rei didn't talk a whole lot in person, let alone on the phone. People rarely ever called her. By now even Usagi knew it was better to text instead.

Kaidou had said he would call. Rei wanted him to call. Had he called her? Had she called him? Was she speaking to him at this very moment? Minako pictured them talking, Rei smiling a rare, gentle smile into the receiver as a man's voice made plans and suggestions, promised the world with nothing but a tone.

The thought hollowed her, poured oil in her chest and set it ablaze. Her pride sizzled and spat. Minako couldn't place why, not quite, not yet, but for a split-second… for a split-second she felt she had been robbed.


End file.
